Carbon nanotubes consisting of seamless and atomically perfect graphitic cylinders generally only a few nanometers in diameter have been synthesized in bulk quantities. The unusual combination of their molecular nature and micrometer-size length gives rise to the uncommon electronic properties of these systems. Electrical transport measurements for individual nanotubes indicate that these systems behave as genuine quantum wires, nonlinear electronic elements or transistors.
Computer simulations indicate that nanotubes containing at least one charged particle, otherwise referred to herein as bucky-shuttles, exhibit an unusual dynamical behavior making such mechanisms useful for nanoscale memory devices. Such nanoscale memory devices combine high switching speed, high packing density and stability with non-volatility of the stored data.
The nanoscale mechanisms including at least one charged particle, generally in the form of a fullerene molecule contained within at least one carbon nanotube can be produced by thermally annealing diamond powder of an average diameter of 4-6 nm via a detonation method reported by Toron Company, Ltd. According to this detonation method diamond powder is heated in a graphite crucible in an inert argon atmosphere at 1800xc2x0 C. for 1 hour. This treatment transforms the diamond powder into graphitic nanostructures as seen in transmission electron microscope images. Interestingly, a large portion of the material produced under this method consists of multi-walled capsules.
Alternative bucky shuttle structures sometimes referred to as xe2x80x9cnano-peapodxe2x80x9d, similar to the structure shown in FIG. 5 can be synthesized by acid purifying carbon nanotubes produced by the pulsed laser ablation of a graphite target impregnated with 1.2% of Ni/Co catalyst as reported by Smith et al. NATURE, 396, 323 (1998). Similarly, nano-peapods have been produced by carbon arc discharge using xcx9c5% of Ni/Y catalyst as reported by Luzzi et al., Science and Application of Nanotubes, p. 67 (2000).